


even if i can't find heaven, i'll walk through hell with you

by kingblake



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pining, This is probably really bad i wrote it in like an hour, i love jake fitzgerald with my whole heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7111138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingblake/pseuds/kingblake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>jake fitzgerald copes with the death of his best friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	even if i can't find heaven, i'll walk through hell with you

**Author's Note:**

> a short little fic i whipped up in an hour and a half, plus it's like 2am, so it's probably really bad. enjoy!

Jake isn't sure how long it'll take him to forget.

He never saw Will's body, nor did he muster up the courage to walk to the casket at the wake, but even so, he still has nightmares about what it must have looked like. Tendons, flesh, bone, ripped limb from limb by the very machine that Will used to cut lumber that warmed his family's fireplace, the same machine they'd fought beside not three days before.

He sees Will's face at night, while he's sleeping, eyes wide and terrified, and if he thinks about it hard enough he can picture it just perfectly: the moment Will realizes he's not going to make it, the way his mouth goes slack and his eyes squeeze shut, just like Emma described. Emma's a good storyteller. In her brief state of disarray, while she was still reeling from the aftermath of the murder, she sat by Jake's bedside and described to him in explicit detail the circumstances and the layout of the murder. She thought he was asleep, of course, and when he asked her about it later, she explained that she needed to say something, anything, to get it off of her chest.

She could remember every twitch and clench of Will's face in his brief final moments. When she described them to Jake, he could picture them with expert precision. After all, Jake _did_ have Will's face memorized to a tee. Will and Jake had been best friends since third grade. For a short time in Jake's sophomore year of high school, Will had been Jake's first male crush. It'd hit Jake like a freight train that he had a crush on his best friend of the same gender, so he amped up his game and began sleeping around. He maintained a steady flow of girls that came and went, and by the time he began his junior year he was the womanizing jock that everyone hated to love.

Jake's crush on Will faded when he met Brooke, the girl seemingly impossible to get, and he focused his energies on pursuing her. He doesn't much care for Nina or Tyler, but he goes along with their plans just so he can stay in the game. He's still finding himself staring jealously at Emma whenever she gives Will a hug or a kiss, but over time the feeling fades and he and Will are back to being friends and _only_ friends.

It's _after_ Will dies that Brooke finally notices him. He's been pining almost religiously for half a year, and the first time really breaks down is when they're working on their scene project for Branson's class. They're in a private room in the public library, rehearsing their lines and making improvements on the script when something snaps within Jake and he crumples in on himself like a staged implosion. He sinks into the uncomfortable wooden chair and Brooke gives him a look, instinctively crossing over to him and pulling him into a wary hug.

He's blubbering like an idiot on her shoulder, and he can feel her heartbeat on his cheek and her fingers in his hair and suddenly he's grasping at the back of her cardigan like his life depends on it. She lets him hold her, massaging circles into his scalp, remaining silent as he cries on her, his tears wetting her shirt. She understands what's wrong, she really does. She and Emma had both known about Jake's crush on Will. He wasn't very good at hiding stuff like that, no matter how good of a liar he claimed himself to be.

When he finally calms himself down, he lets go of her and wipes his eyes with the back of his hand. He blinks rapidly, shaking his head back and forth, then gets up and continues reciting his lines, even though his voice is rough and his hands are shaky.

Brooke knows to give him time, so when he's not with her or the gang he's at Will's house, helping Will's mother with the chores Will left behind. It's not much, but the way that Mrs. Belmont looks at him while he's hauling around firewood tells him that his work is appreciated, although nearly unnecessary. The wood bites into his fingertips when he carries it from the backyard to the front, and it's taken him a while to transfer it all, but it's mostly for a good cause. The police department confiscated the machine that killed Will and the backyard is empty, overgrown, desolated: Will's parents, tenderhearted as they are, can't bring themselves to even look back there.

Jake's been spending his time tending to the yard, weeding it, mowing it, carrying trash and transferring it to compost. He rakes up twigs and dead leaves and pushes them into a burn pile, takes the power hose and makes sure the barn stays clean instead of dusty. When he's finished his little landscaping job he builds a fence with a padlock only he knows the password to, so when it comes time to tend to the grass again he can get in and out.

When he's finished in the yard he needs something else to keep him occupied, so he moves his work inside and becomes the Belmonts' personal handyman. He fixes lightbulbs, rips out carpeting, rewires the A.C., and even does the laundry when he has some spare time. Will's mom insists that he stop helping them, that he just go home, but she knows that going home wouldn't help Jake. Him being at their house gave him something to do, something to put his mind to. Their home was an escape, and sometimes she caught Jake standing in Will's room, his head down, shoulders heaving as he breaks into sobs.

Jake really likes Brooke. He liked Will, sure, but something about Brooke is so enticing, so magnetizing, that he can't seem to keep himself away.

The first time she kisses him, they're at her house. They're sitting by her pool, jeans rolled up to their knees, feet dangling underwater. Her hand is resting on his knee and they're laughing about something that happened at school and his arm is slung over her shoulder and suddenly she's quiet, looking up at him, and when he turns his head to see why she's fallen silent he feels her lips on his and it's like someone electrocuted every individual nerve in his body.

The first thing he thinks is " _Wow. This is just like in the books._ " Jake's kissed plenty of people before, but none have ever felt like this. His body's on fire and his eyes are burning with tears and he turns his body into the kiss, hands instinctively coming to grab at Brooke's cheeks as though she is air and he cannot breathe.

That day, by the poolside, is the first time Jake feels safe. The killer's been long dead, thankfully, but an impending sense of doom has been settled on Jake's shoulders like the clouds of Atlas. When Brooke kisses him, everything goes away. He forgets his name, his home address, his phone number. The only thing he can focus on is the beat of his heart synchronizing with the frantic fluttering of Brooke's, and when she pulls away Jake has an epiphany.

Will was gone, he realized. But that didn't mean Jake had to stop living too.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i couldn't end it all sadly so i tried my best to make jake happy, but idk. did u enjoy the angst? comments and constructive criticism is appreciated !! jake deserved better


End file.
